Without a thorough Request for Proposal (RFP) for your website design project, it is virtually impossible for a prospective website design company to accurately bid on your project. To ask a web designer for a quote without an RFP is asking for WAGs (wild ass guestimates). As a result, a typical website designer will either low-ball you just to get your business or high-ball you so they don’t lose their shirt on the deal or just throw out a number at you and see if it sticks.

Composing a thorough RFP not only enables a good web design firm to to accurately bid on your website development project, but in addition, it allows you to compare apples with apples. For example, if you list 10 functional requirements in your RFP and those website design companies address each of those 10 items, then you can much more accurately compare their fees and the thoroughness of their explanations or responses to your functional requirements. Only with a well-structured and organized request for proposal can you possibly compare, contrast, and analyze competing website developers.

Sample RFP Structure

Most Request for Proposals follow this general format (please note, this is written from the perspective of the company seeking a website built by a website development firm):

1. Organizational information
2. Goals or purpose of website
3. Comparative website models
4. Demographics of target audience
5. List all required functions, procedures, and applications
6. Table of contents for website links
7. Known budget constraints
8. Time line to launch (including sales/marketing deadlines)
9. List any known preferences for website design
10. List factors that you may use to evaluate competing firm’s proposals

• Equifax: 1-800-525-6285
• Experian (formerly TRW): 1-888-397-3742
• Trans Union : 1-800-680-7289
• Social Security Administration (fraud line): 1-800-269-0271

After analyzing his website and then sitting down with him for 45 minutes, I realized exactly why his site wasn’t ranking. He has no touch with his consumer’s mindset, language, or dialect. The guy is obviously intelligent and knew exactly how Google, Yahoo, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) worked, but he wasn’t applying my first rule of SEO: Focus on Your Keywords.

Our Words versus Key Words

I’ll say it again, if you want people to find your website then you need to optimize your website with the keywords that your prospective website visitors might use to find you, NOT the words that you would use to describe yourself. The following table illustrates the difference between our words and their words:

Do you see the difference?

So, as you prepare your website content, be conscious of the laymen’s terms that your perspective clients might Google to find you, your competitors, and other websites or services like yours. If you have any doubts, pick up the phone and call some of your best clients. Ask them, “if you were to Google 2-3 words to find a website like mine, what words would you use?” Ask 3-5 people this same question and focus on these keywords.

Search Engine Optimizing Keywords

Once you have these keywords in mind, be sure to tag them properly within the HTML code of your website:

• Page title (title meta tag)
• Page headers (h1, h2, h3 tags)
• Un-Ordered lists (bulleted list)
• Numbered lists
• Bold (strong tags)
• Hyper links (especially the anchor text)
• Images (alt and title tags)

If you need assistance, please contact me directly.

For the past 6 months, Google Checkout has been available free of charge. For those early adopters who have known about Google Checkout, we have been able to enjoy no monthly, setup, or gateway fees.

Google Checkout Fees

Beginning January 1, 2008, Google Checkout’s beta version will no longer be in Beta. In 2008, when you use Google Checkout to process your sales, you will be charged 2% + $0.20 per transaction. Google will continue its policy of no monthly, setup, or gateway service fees.

AdWords discounts for using Google Checkout

If you’re an AdWords advertiser, you will also be eligible for free transaction processing for some or all of your Google Checkout sales each month. For every $1 you spend on AdWords each month, you can process $10 in sales the following month for free through Google Checkout.

eBay’s Paypal Versus Google’s Checkout

This is going to be like watching two Sumo Wrestlers. As of this writing, Google, ranks #2 on Alexa and eBay ranks #20. For those of you unfamiliar with Alexa, www.Alexa.com was purchased by Amazon.com and monitors website traffic across the Internet. There are about a billion website across the Internet. Any website that ranks in the top million is considered relevant. Anything in the top 100,000 is worth watching. Anything in the top 1,000 is worth serious money, probably tens of millions of dollars. Anything in the top 100 is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Anything in the 10 is probably a billion+ dollar company.

So, my question is … if you were a betting man, who would you put your money on; Paypal or Google Checkout? PayPal has been specializing in financial transactions for about 10 years. This is their business. PayPal was purchased by eBay about 5-7 years ago. eBay, of course, spearheaded the market in online auctions and has broadened it’s circle of influence to include shopping and small business e-commerce. To facilitate the movement of money, eBay purchased PayPal, which allows individuals and small businesses to quickly and easily accept credit card transactions without the hassle of a merchant account, payment gateways and other technical issues.

Google, on the other hand, started out in search but has been broadening its scope to include a variety of non search focused entities. So, you have a hugely powerful company with an omnipresent, almost God-like knowledge and insight versus a still extraordinarily powerful player in the field, which has mastery and specialization of the market. Google Checkout is a direct threat and competition to PayPal. It will be an interesting match to watch.

Basically, the concept is that an Affiliate Advertiser pays and Affiliate Marketer a predefined amount of money or commission for the sales or leads generated by that Affiliate Marketer’s website. Google, has probably the second most well-known and successful Affiliate Marketing program, called AdSense.

The way it works is that an independent website will place advertising links or banners on their website, which directs traffic to the Affiliate Advertiser’s website. Through a cookie and website analytics, data is gathered, statistics generated, and evidence of the Affiliate Marketer’s performance is reported.

Based on this information, the Affiliate Advertiser pays the Affiliate Marketer their performance-based compensation. Often, these cookies and analytics will be collected, performed, analyzed and reported by independent, third-party affiliate marketing aggregators.

More on Affiliate Marketing >>>

75% of All Consumers Start Their Research Online

Please review the following articles:

1. Accenture Case Study
2. Bazaar Voice Statistics
3. Internet Retailer

By the way, I found these articles by Googling, “% consumers research online before shopping”.

So, I do believe that being proactive about making sure that your website ranks high on search engines should be part of your overall branding, public awareness, publicity, marketing and advertising campaign.

What is FICO Anyway?

FICO was developed by Bill Fair and Earl Isaac of Fair Isaac Corporation, originally designed to assist mortgage lenders to determine the possibility that the borrower may default, or not pay, their loans and other financial obligations. Since it was developed by the Fair Isaac Corporation, it became known as the FICO score. Now, it is widely used outside of the mortgage lending profession. Your FICO score has become synonymous with your credit score.

Your credit and FICO score are aggregated by 3 major organizations:

1. Experian, www.experian.com
2. TransUnion or TrueCredit, www.truecredit.com
3. Equifax, www.equifax.com

You might be surprised at how important it is to keep and maintain a great credit score. Your credit score, often called your FICO, affects almost every aspect of your life including:

• How much house you can own
• How much can you mortgage
• Your monthly mortgage payment
• Your mortgage interest payment
• How much car you can own
• How much money you can borrow
• The interest rate you pay on loans
• How much interest you pay on credit cards
• How much you pay on insurance premiums
• Whether a company will hire you
• Whether an insurance company will insure you
• Whether an insurance company will pay your claim
• Whether a judge will award you a release on bail
• The amount of bail a judge might set for you
• Whether a landlord will rent to you
• How much of a security deposit a landlord will ask of you
• Whether a prospective spouse might marry you
• Whether a bank will issue you a credit card
• Whether a utility company will require you to pay a deposit
• Whether a telephone company will require a deposit
• Whether you are allowed to work in finance, insurance, or real estate
• Whether a retailer will issue you a private label credit card

Enough said? So, how do you…

Raise your FICO Credit Score

1. Get a copy of your credit score
2. Dispute all derogatory items
3. Never close or cancel your oldest accounts
4. Always keep open your oldest accounts
5. Keep at least 3 good credit accounts open
6. Close all other accounts with inactivity
7. Request a credit line increase twice a year
8. Request the maximum amount of credit they will offer you
9. Keep your balances as low as possible
10. Pay off your credit card balance every month if possible
11. Always pay more than the minimum payment, even if it’s only $5 more
12. NEVER be late or miss a payment
13. Avoid responding to every credit card offer you receive
14. Try to keep the number of credit inquiries down as low as possible
15. Buy a home and take out a mortgage on that home

The Internet is definitely a double-edged sword. Not only does it flatten the world and allow people incredible access to an almost infinite number of consumers, it also allows criminals and thieves incredible access to an almost infinite number of victims. Don’t be one of them.

If it Sounds too Good to be True…

Then it is. Don’t do it. There is a great saying, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” It’s time that we take responsibility for ourselves and our money and not fall for these online Internet scams. Here are some classic examples…

Letter from Nigeria

Some guy from Nigeria claims that there is some type of inheritance or huge amount of money or a windfall or some bureaucratic loophole where a bunch of money is found and they need your help to claim it. They’ll give you 10% of this $10 million dollar bounty if you can just assist them. All you need to do is give them your bank account information and…

Too good to be true? Stop reading. SCAM! Delete it. Don’t be an idiot. Don’t even consider it.

Craigslist Item for Sale Scam

You put something up for sale on Craigslist.com and somebody from out of state offers to buy it sight unseen. They ask the condition of the property and when you respond they claim that their secretary or assistant will be mailing you a check for the full amount and somebody will arrange for pickup. They just need your home address. Strangely, the name on the letter is different from the e-mail account. The address on the check is different from where it is supposed to ship. Nothing makes sense and nothing seems to match.

It gets better. They send a follow-up email saying that a mistake had been made and they over paid you for the item. Can you please send them a check for the difference. Yea right! SCAM! Stop reading, delete the e-mail, don’t respond, don’t be an idiot. Move on.

Careerbuilder Money Laundering SCAM

You have a resume on CareerBuilder.com and somebody offers you a job as a facilitator or money mover or some crap like that. All you have to do is accept money into your PayPal account and then wire or transfer money to some other off shore account. They’ll pay you 25% commission or something like that. They’ll even deposit $1,500 into your PayPal account right now, before you even agree or get all the details. But, strangely, nothing matches. SCAM!

Email from Bank of America

You get this e-mail claiming that it’s from Bank of America and the subject is, “Update Your Personal Account”. They’ve used the same logo, the same colors, the same everything. The letter starts out like this:

We at Bank of America are constantly working to increase security for all Online Banking users. To ensure our customers a heightened level of security and comfort we have initiated number of security programs and also upgraded our website for the new year, This message was sent to you with respect to our ongoing accounts update program for our Online Banking clients. This is meant to validate all existing records including your email address you have with us to help us inform you and recognize when it has been unduly changed.Update your site key and your credit card information.

Then, they have a call to action:

To initiate the process, please follow the link bellow and fill in the necessary fields:

But, when you mouseover the link, it doesn’t go to Bank of America. It goes to:

http://pushrecord.com/news/www.bankofamerica.com/sitekey/boa/index.php

And, to add to the credibility and authenticity of this e-mail, they include the following footer:

The information transmitted herein is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error delete the material from any computer

Don’t do it! It’s a SCAM!

Email from the IRS or Better Business Bureau

You get another e-mail from somebody scary. It’s the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or the Sate Police or the Better Business Bureau (BBB). It comes from somewhere that seems like an authority. They say that you are in trouble or somebody has filed a claim against your or some crap like that. They ask you to respond to this claim by clicking on this link. Don’t do it! It’s got SCAM written all over it.

Urgent From Mr.Shafiqur Rahman Adhami

I received this e-mail this morning. If you fall for it, you’re an idiot. First of all, he tells me he has an “urgent and very confidential business proposition” for me. My me? I don’t know him, he doesn’t know me. How can he make me an urgent and very confidential business proposition?

Second, he tells me that some woman died in an airplane crash with an estate worth $6 million and NO WILL. He even gives me a link to an website reporting the plane crash where she died. The money is sitting in the bank and according to the Laws of United Arab Emerites, after 7 years the money reverts to the government by default. Well, we don’t want that do we?

He just needs me to claim that I’m next of kin, no questions asked. Wow! Sounds like a great opportunity. He’s waiting for my urgent reply. If you’re this stupid to fall for this scam well, I guess Darwin was right about survival of the fittest.

1. Help the consumer find what they are looking for as easy and relevant as possible
2. Engage in micro-targeting, define a narrowly focused niche
3. Exercise personalization, create dynamic, relevant marketing
4. Identify your customer when they return
5. Maintain a history of their purchases
6. Cross sell complimentary products
7. Make recommendations based on past buying decisions
8. Create a Click-to-Call button fir big ticket items
9. Exercise affinity selling, make recommendations
10. Allows consumer reviews to enable and empower the community to correct and verify producer claims
11. Help people make choices
12. People crave information, give it to them, be transparent
13. Put samples out there, let people sample your work